“Some might decry it as weak,” he allowed. “But I don’t believe that forgiveness in itself is weak. I happen to be of the opinion that there can be great strength in it. The strength not to be ruled by fear. The strength to strive for happiness.” He offered a cautious smile. “What should be said of Lottie for forgiving me?”
Something inside her threatened to splinter and crack open. Something she didn’t want to examine too closely, lest it overwhelm her. “I don’t know if I can,” she said, and there was such a plaintive cast to her voice. “I don’t know if Iwantto.” But neither did she know if shedidn’t.
“I understand. It’s not a decision to make lightly. And you don’t owe him your forgiveness, little friend, just as Lottie did not owe me hers. Still, I am, and always will be, grateful for it.” Unspoken between them was the suggestion that he thought Sebastian would be, too. But that she would first have toofferit to him.
She swallowed through the queer tightness in her throat. “What happens, then, should I forgive him, and—and he proves himself unworthy of it?”
“Ah,” he said, and that smile took on a rueful cast. “I’m afraid that, too, will be only your decision.”
∞∞∞
It had been a quiet walk, heavy with every word left unsaid between them. Sebastian felt the weight of each of them upon his shoulders, every one of those words which he could define with ease, the linguistic origins and parts of speech of which he could explain, and which he felt helpless to arrange into any sort of order that might sufficiently express himself.
There was also the matter of the ring in his pocket. He had the understanding that a man was meant to saysomethingwhen presenting a ring to a woman—he’d read a number of novels recently that suggested as much—but perhaps such words had been meant to accompany a different sort of ring than the one he’d purchased.
She might very well hate it, and he had had to resign himself to that possibility—and hope instead that he could explain its meaning well enough to convince her to accept it.
And so it popped out, through the jumble of nerves, the very minute they walked over the threshold into his house. “I bought you a ring.”
“Oh?”
Perhaps he had imagined the inquisitive tone. She did notlookparticularly interested. Instead she seemed determined to look everywherebutat him.
“It took several days to find one, you see. I must have visited a dozen shops, looking for something to suit. And then nothing did, and I wasn’t certain what you would like, and I wanted so desperately to find something that would please you—”
“Sebastian, you’re rambling. Perhaps you ought to have written this down.”
“Itried. It came out dreadful, every damned time.” But she had called him by his name—for the first time sincethen, and he found his nerves easing just the slightest bit. Just enough that he could take a slow breath, and try again. Slower, this time. “I haven’t the talent for this sort of thing. And I’m so afraid that I have made exactly the wrong choice.”
“Why is that?”
“Because I’m afraid it might mean something different to you than it means to me, that it might remind you of things you would rather forget. So I would tell you first what it means to me, and hope that when I give it to you, you will be able to see it the same.” His fingers closed around the ring in his pocket, and he said, slowly, carefully, “It means that I will place you above all other things—beyond justice; beyond principles. It means that I will trust in you first and foremost, and that I will always defend you. It means that from this moment on, I will always be on your side—whichever side that happens to be. Because there is nowhere I would rather be thanatyour side.”
Her eyes widened just a bit, and he thought—he thought he might’ve finally said somethingright.
He continued, “Some time ago, Jenny, you thanked me for clearing your name. But in truth, all I did was to present evidence to Mr. Beckett in a manner he could not ignore, in a way he coulduse. In fact, you cleared your own name—and you gave me the means to free you. And that is what I want this to represent to you. Not imprisonment, not bondage, not servitude, nor even bad memories best forgotten—butfreedom.”
And he extracted the ring from his pocket at last and laid it into the cup of her palm, and hoped she would find it as close as he could get to the guarantee she had once requested of him.
Chapter Thirty Four
The blue stone shone in the low light of the lamp, the asterism contained within the gem shimmering as the light cut across its polished surface. A star sapphire—just six rays, but each of them reached to the very edge of the gold encasing the stone; a bright and shining star encompassing the whole of the surface.
An unusual choice for a wedding ring. But then, he was an unusual man. She closed her fingers around it, feeling the metal, warmed by the heat of his hand, press into her palm. “Why did you think I would not like it?”
“Symbols are important,” he said. “But they are also personal, and—I feared you would attach only negativity to this one. I don’t wish you to wear it and think only of the Amberleys when you look upon it. To me, it is a symbol of triumph, of strength. I would want you to see it the same.” A short, sharp breath followed; a muscle jumped in the tight line of his jaw. “If I have misjudged, I will find another—”
“No. I want this one.” And she was just a little surprised to find that shedid, when she had not been able to sustain an interest in another. They had all just been pretty bits of jewelry; a finer manacle than those she might have found herself within had she been sentenced to prison—but a manacle nonetheless.
But this onemeantsomething. Perhaps even more than he had intended. It was the end of a horrid chapter of her life, which had stretched out for years and years, one misery yawning out into another in an ugly spiral of death and loss and grief. Anger traded for resentment and back again, until what little hope she had had for happiness had been smothered beneath every endless line upon the pages of her collected sorrow.
She had forgotten, somehow, that there was always an end. And when she closed her eyes, she could see it there—her hand hovering above the page. All she had to do wasturnit. Let a new chapter begin. Wherever it would take her, it would bedifferentthan that which had come before. For better or worse, it was impossible to say.
And she heard herself asking at last that question which she had thus far avoided. “Do you love me?”
“God, yes, I love you.” It was not the sweet sort of declaration of devotion that existed in those romantic novels he had sent her; it was the visceral, seething hiss she would have expected of a man who had been run through with a sword. There was nothing of delicacy, of gentleness in it. But then he was neither of those things, so she supposed it was, at least,honest. “I love you more than is reasonable to do. I love you beyond every virtue, every principle I hold dear. And I will not tell you no other man could love you better—”
“You won’t?” She canted her head to one side. “Why not?”
